Architecture site Skyscrapernews.com reports that the plans to rebuild the Heathside and Lethbridge Estates have been released by PRP Architects:

The developer, Family Mosiac, plans to contruct 1,201 new homes (compared with 565 currently on the site) including two seventeen storey towers located near the centre of the site and a number of other buildings ranging from 14 to 3 storeys, 512 square metres of retail space and 768 metres of floorspace for community uses.

The estates, which are located between Blackheath and Deptford Bridge, running along the A2, are some of the borough's shabbiest.

Investment leads to bussiness development, leads to jobs, leads to people with mone, leads to new shops/bars for people to spend, leads to higher income for the council to address under investment in schools and other measures to improve the area so reducing 'lawlessness'

You see how it works? Clever eh?

Mixed areas with (rich/not so rich) tend to work.

Your argument seems to suggest that less development leads to less crime? Would you agree that there is a lack of housing in the area? Yes, it may still be out of reach for many but think of all those people paying council tax?

I was not making an argument I was expressing an emotion; exasperation. Economics is important, but sometimes it's not the right prism to view a problem.

I don't think the semi-lawlessness is purely a financial problem,addressed only by money. It is about how resources; social as well as finanical are used and I think its also about lack of leadership.

If you have good leadership, you can make things happen without bucket loads of money, you can galvanise non financial resources; time, goodwill and get people to make contributions that help their community. But without that framework of leadership, things aren't clear, individuals and the various stakeholder groups in an area/potential community work (if they do at all) unilaterally not towards to a common goal.

What I mean is this, look at the Barbican. It is a housing estate, but it has a clear ethos. A place that has a affinity to the arts. It's not about creating a warren of flats to get people off a housing list. It's creating a home. Not everyone that lives there will necessarily into the arts but if they get a home there they know what the area they live in is about.

I also think about Milton Keynes, there was vision in that development. Why should we in South London, not get the same quality of thought, and have to have our area & skyscape bombarded by developers that don't appear to care?

And is that what we have here? We have an entity that want to invest here, now our elected leaders ( who WE elect) have to work with them in such a way that we get a benifit and they make a few quid. Why is it always an assumption that developers are just here to rape and pillage? Politics is the art of the possible, use the opertunity. Actually I suspect that we kind of agree.

And to the numpty that is banging on about gangs, it's not inevitably linked to how high your dwelling is off the ground.

Well "learn about economics" I think you have just missed why the last recession came about. If you leave the decision entirely to developers and bankers it may not be good for the economy after all.

In solving a problem one should be careful in avoiding to create a bigger one. Any valuable urbanist can explain why tall developments in the 70's ended up being violent and delapidated areas quite quickly.

One example, 500 sqm of retail space for 1200 apartments sounds like the only shop in 6 hectares is going to be a Tesco express.

Who is going to choose to live in that community, probably only those that have no other choice.

It does look nice, and nestled under the slope of the hill the height of the buildings will not be too obtrusive, except to the poor souls living directly in their shadow. But there is the point that Lewisham Council fell over itself in the Development Plan Options to offer double the housing required of it in the London-wide development scheme without fully thinking through the infra-structure and local jobs needs. They seem intent to push the borough further along the route of being a mere dormitory for Docklands and the City - not the way to get a balanced and stable demographic.

Rather than shoe-horning part of its self-imposed housing quota into every available space there should be some decent industrial development(somewhere other than the totally inappropriate Mews and businesses employing a dozen or so people rather than three or four) to replace the light industry that has disappeared over the years - the Coca-cola plant where Matalan now is, Peak Freans (although that might have been Southwark), Pearce Signs, and the like

While it is true that social problems come from a poverty of spirit and a lack of social cohesion and weak communities.

To look at this sort of renovation and immediately anticipate the worst is not helpful.

It has to be looked at in more detail. Hopefully the plans will contain features that help bring people together rather that remain confined to their little boxes.

There is a lot that can be done with the design of developments that make them a more pleasant place to live.

The public sector are guilty of some awful mistakes, South London is littered with them. The private sector are often no better - too many fastbuck yuppie bolt holes.

That area of Greenwich seems to be have a lot of development. I'd like to hear some local opinions about the direction it is heading. Is there a planning vision or just left to a lot of private developers trying to anticipate the taste of the demographic they are chasing?

Development using private money can work with appropriate safegaurds surley? I don't see any of the big three parties proposing that the state start building housing so either we do nothing or we accept that this is where we are and make it work. Yes, I agree that regulation is required (effective, pragmatic regulation) that is what was lacking. Big finance set the agenda and policed themselves, and went BANG! Where else is the investment going to come from?

At least they are not planning to build on beautiful woodland like that horrid Loromah Estate scheme in Tyson Road, Forest Hill. Shame on Lewisham Council for not drawing up proper regulation plans for conservation areas that should include privately owned land as well.

I think the government should be incentivising people to leave already overcrowded city locations and move out to rural places in the country that actually have room for them, not just building taller and bigger structures to squash more people in.

That is the worst possible strategy. You'd create suburban sprawl right across the country.

Cities - particularly London - are not only our engines for economic growth, they are the most environmentally sustainable way of living and - obviously this is a personal view - they offer the best quality of life - if you get them right.

We should concentrate on how to improve our cities.

Getting rid of two of the worst estates in the borough seems like a decent start.

Living outside off London is generally cheaper, no need to 'incentivise' anyone. Generally people live here because they want too. There are plenty of brown field sites that are empty. High density does not have to be low quality.